Room For Eight - Miami To Atlanta Quiz

Answer: An art museum followed by a little golfing at a public course.

Dorothy was a gambling addict, so that would be risky; nor was she a widow (Julia was, though) so she was restricted from the tea. Neither were enthusiastically Republican even though Dorothy might've entertained the idea. Clearly, Julia wouldn't care for such a gathering [a very liberal one, that...] but they both liked museums (Julia liked to paint and Dorothy worked in a museum briefly) and golfing was a hobby both dabbled in. Mrs. Sugarbaker wouldn't have gone to a club with restricted membership rules, however.

Answer: Plastic surgery of a recreational nature...

Both ladies had toyed with the idea of breast augmentation (Blanche finally decided to date the plastic surgeon instead and Mary Jo used the money for video phones instead). The notion of Blanche getting back together with her George was impossible seeing as how he was dead and all; MJ thought about reuning with that skunk Ted, though. Blanche DID take a stab at constructing a novel, of course, and was dramatically bad at doing so. Mary Jo never even daydreamed about authoring anything more than her signature or a business proposal.

Answer: Strangely enough, all three answers are right.

Suzanne had an out-of-character pet pig (named Noelle), bedecked in ribbons and frilly clothes while Rose took in a sick one who ended up homesick to the point of nearly dying from it. Both had gay friends, much to the shock of either at the time they realized it. Suzanne was a candystriper just briefly (atonement for the guilt of injuring Anthony the delivery fellow) and Rose was a career volunteer and do-gooder. One of her assignments ended her up in the discovery of her ailing birth father - who turned out to be, of all things, a celibate monk! With at least one lapse, it should be noted...

Answer: Both had married as teenagers and both of those marriages ended fast and are not talked about much. No need to stir up the skeletons in the closet too often...

Charlene was married once and only once and was in her thirties at the time; Sophia had at least three weddings in her eight decades of life. The families in Sicily and Poplar Bluff, where both ladies were raised a generation or two apart, were quite poor and noticeably large. Charlene had a built-in magnet for crooks and/or generally suspicious men [remember the one boyfriend who sold the "Women" hot merchandise or the one who broke out of jail and held them all at gunpoint that New Year's eve?]. Poor Sophia had a history of alleged mobsters in her background and a short fling with a bank robber in Miami (my guess is that she knew he was really Mickey Rooney *grin*). Stillfield was a lifetime idol of Elvis and Petrillo's brush with him came in when, after a mix-up in invitations, a room full of Presley impersonators showed up at her last wedding. I hasten to add that one of those Elvises was played by Quentin Tarantino - and I'm not kidding!

Answer: Yahtzee (a Civil War version)

'Jeopardy!' was on both shows - the board game AND [almost] the TV show. Dorothy proved too unpleasant to make it through try-outs and Suzanne cheated on the home version. Trivial Pursuit was played, too, on "Designing Women". Guess what? Suzanne cheated on that one as well.

There was a Saint Olaf 'Monopoly' match but only Rose remotely understood the rules so it lasted a challenging two or three rolls of the dice. Yahtzee, in any variation, was never part of either series so our ladies decide to play that to disallow both cheating and confusion.

Answer: Bowling

Mary Jo MAY have liked Bob Hope (who knows?) but Dorothy got to meet him at a benefit on "The Golden Girls". He never was a factor in "Designing Women" for Mary Jo, nor was a television commercial (even though she did show up on a public broadcast program once). Ms. Zbornak got that job hawking pizza to disastrous effect. MJ was in a defense class, Dorothy wasn't. Both shows went to the bowling alley, though.

The "Women" in a gender battle to compete for a designing job with some pretty stereotypical men in a rival firm and "The Girls" in a fierce 'roommates vs. roommates' competition.

Answer: Both had brothers who were, for lack of a better word, unusual in some way.

Suzanne's father was long deceased so no singing career for him while Blanche's 'Big Daddy' did flirt with the country and western stage as an elder. Suzanne never danced but she DID end up in an ex-husband's tell-all biography once (he was a baseball player). Blanche once thought a novel her sister had penned was based on her but it turned out to be just ego run amok - Blanche wasn't the only hormonal southern belle in the hemisphere, after all. Both characters had complicated and rather enjoyable brothers, though, no matter how severely they ruffled up the sensibilities of their sisters; one was mentally ill (and a wannabe stand-up comic) and the other was a 'ladies man' suddenly emerging from the closet (who finally "married" a policeman). To their surprise, both Blanche and Suzanne survived such scandalous things which gave them time aplenty to create further scandals of their own.

Answer: They opened up their homes to strangers for "benevolent" reasons (AKA profit or "social correctness", to be honest about it...)

Can one mention "The Golden Girls" and not include cheesecake, I wonder? At any rate, Sophia liked it fine and I don't know that Julia ever tried any. Dear ol' Sophia DID mount a camel on a road trip through Sicily; the closest Julia got to a circus was when one showed up at her house.

There were no visible dromedaries there, though - just a bearded lady, etc. Julia was very fired up about the materials displayed at the newstand and crashed into it more than once while Sophia (usually vehicle-free to begin with) never had such a fit --- at least not one of that nature, anyway. Both women had opened their homes, however, for quite different reasons. Sophia rented weekend rooms to get money for a TV set and Julia was on one of those "Historical Homes" tours. Well, up until the hostess mentioned that the house was once a [shall we say] 'night spot' for paying gentleman visitors, that is.

Answer: They had both dated married men without knowing they were each "the other woman".

Rose didn't leave St. Olaf, not for long at least, until later in life and after the death of her husband. Charlene headed to school and then Arkansas while very young (and she, never Rose, dressed up like Miss Monroe on one occasion). Rose Nyland didn't get her HS diploma until she attended night classes in Miami, with Dorothy as her reluctant teacher.

Therefore, the poor ladies, both had been duped by married men. Rose's ended up dead in her bed and Charlene's was no bigger a cheating louse than his wife was.

Answer: Dash Goff wrote that, after a brutal bout of writer's block in a "Designing Women" episode.

Suzanne's ex (Dash) had slipped into a suicidal depression but the ladies rallied and snapped him out of it. He left a short message behind as he got back to his work. It ended:
"...And I was left only to pick up an abandoned handkerchief and savor the perfumed shadows of these women. These Southern women..."

To me, those words speak to to all the women on these two enjoyable and timeless "little" shows. I hope you enjoyed this quiz!